THE GHANAIAN CHRONICLE

"10 billion cedis wasted on anniversary bash', is the banner headline of the lead story in the Chronicle. The accompanying story says despite claims by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the government spent about two billion cedis for the celebration of the nation's 40th independence anniversary, the Chronicle investigations, corroborated by sources close to the 31st December Women's Movement, have established that the Castle doled out over 10 billion cedis for the entire celebration. The Chronicle says included in the spending spree of the government were 592,000,000 to members of the Association for the Defence of the Revolution (ACDRs), June Fourth Movement, the Patriots Club and the mobisquads for the purchase of anniversary cloth. The paper says exact figures have been difficult to come by but sources close to the anniversary planning committee list a tall order of activities in which huge expenditures were incurred. According to the paper, these expenditures, some of which were reportedly inflated, ran into nearly nine billion cedis. GRI

The Chronicle in another front page story reports that three policemen who chained a nursing mother to an iron bar at Hemang Police Station, are to appear before a special police investigation committee at the Central Region Police Headquarters at Cape Coast. The paper says Inspector Samuel Adu, Constable A.K. Boamah and Corporal John Nanukna, have been interdicted by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP. The interdiction, according to Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Kwabena Agyei, in Charge of Twifo Praso District , took effect from October 28, this year. The Chronicle says ASP Agyei said letters summoning the policemen to appear before the special police command, have just been received from Cape Coast and will be effected soon. GRI

"Ghana's forest may disappear by 2005", is the alarming headline in the centre spread of the Chronicle, whose following story says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, has warned that at the rate at which Ghana is losing her rain forest - 22,000 hectares a year, there will be no forest left by the year 2005. The Chronicle quoting Mr. Lambert Okrah, the programme officer of Green Earth, an environmental organisation, said notwithstanding the nation's desire to attain sustainable forest management, the country's forest continues to disappear. Mr. Lambert was speaking at a five-day seminar organised by Green Earth Organisation at Apowa, a suburb of Takoradi, for 20 chiefs drawn from the southern rain forest area of the Western Region. He said; "the government of Ghana in her own way has not been idle in the striving for sustainable forest management. Various attempts are being made in this regard culminating in Forest and Wildlife Policy of Ghana, National Forest Management Plan and Interim Measures for Logging in the off-reserves". "Significantly, the 1992 constitution of the Republic amply displays that desire. It is however, disheartening that the above notwithstanding, Ghana still has to live with high forest loss and considerable forest degradation," the Chronicle quoted Mr. Lammbert as saying. GRI